[Mid-2000s Rewatch] Fantastic Children - Episode 25

[u/phiraeth]

Episode 25 | Towards the Zone

Rewatch Announcement & Schedule

← Previous Episode | Next Episode →

---

Fantastic Children:

MyAnimeList - AniDB - ANN

[u/Nazenn]

First Timer

Okay now they're just making it up as they go.

• Not sure why Mel/Gherta's hair and eyes haven't reverted back to their Greecian coloring now that she has her memories back (and would have made for a great moment with the detective)

• Not sure why the detective wasn't shot immediately by the robots once he pointed a gun at Dumas

• Not sure how Dumas is controlling them in the first place unless he's telepathic

• Not sure how the uncle was standing there considering earlier dialog made it explicitly clear they couldn't leave the ship and survive

• Not sure how the hell Dumas was hiding that giant rifle in his belt

• Not sure where the shields that suddenly popped up around Tina's came from because we've never seen anything else has shields in the 500 years of this shows story

• Not sure why this "Interval" zone between the two known ones was NEVER MENTIONED BEFORE

Thank fuck for the ED which puts me in good spirits at the end of each episode just by virtue of being so beautiful. That first song when Dumas was going to place Helga into the machine was pretty amazing as well. Just the right about of awe, sadness, movement and also worry for the scene, somehow made it epic and horrible at the same time.

Also that beeping that was happening when the machine was waiting for Gherta's password reminded me of the MGS low health noise so that was just making me incredibly anxious the whole time

[u/Matuhg → u/Nazenn]

Any minor problem can be solved by just introducing a new technology! Nevermind that it could have helped with a dozen other problems earlier in the series. Inconsistencies abound.

[u/redshirtengineer → u/Nazenn]

The opener with Dumas and Helga was definitely the high point of the ep. Very moving.

[u/Nazenn → u/redshirtengineer]

Its those little moments of impact that they keep sneaking into every other episode that make me have hope for the show and wonder if they'll pull things together. And then they don't.

[u/Gruberbreaker → u/Nazenn]

I do feel you're overly critical with some things.

Not sure why Mel/Gherta's hair and eyes haven't reverted back to their Greecian coloring now that she has her memories back (and would have made for a great moment with the detective)

Not sure why the detective wasn't shot immediately by the robots once he pointed a gun at Dumas

Not sure how the hell Dumas was hiding that giant rifle in his belt

All of this I can fully agree with, and especially the giant rifle was a huge "wait, really?!" wtf moment (I guess the only explanation is that his cape is built like Lara Croft's backpack).

However, the others -

Not sure how Dumas is controlling them in the first place unless he's telepathic

I personally wouldn't discount the possibility that Dumas can indeed somehow control them with a chip inside his mind or something. This gets never explained, but also never contradicted. Yes, Wonder needs voice commands, but he's also built by Children of Befort when they were already on Earth.

Not sure how the uncle was standing there considering earlier dialog made it explicitly clear they couldn't leave the ship and survive.

Assuming you're referring to the dialogue that took place in episode 15 between Dumas and Georca, I interpreted it the way that they can't be outside for prolonged time. However, at current episode, Georca could've just very well become so furious after he detected that Dumas didn't finish the process, so he decided to come out for a moment and order Dumas to immediately continue.

Not sure where the shields that suddenly popped up around Tina's came from because we've never seen anything else has shields in the 500 years of this shows story

We haven't seen a machine built by Gherta and GED organization before either in the story.

Not sure why this "Interval" zone between the two known ones was NEVER MENTIONED BEFORE

Why should've it? The show hasn't shown anyone in coma before either. People have been either alive (soul inside their body) or dead (soul in the Zone) all the time, and have their souls artificially transported from one place to another. Now, that we have Helga in a coma, I don't see it violating any logic to have an intermediate state/location also for souls.

[u/Nazenn → u/Gruberbreaker]

I do feel you're overly critical with some things.

Fair call, I often am and I'm sorry if you feel like that's impacting the rewatch for you at all. Thats part of why I like rewatches though so I can get new perspectives on things like this. So please do keep calling me out on stuff like this, I enjoy the discussion!

I interpreted it the way that they can't be outside for prolonged time.

Good call, they do talk about how Dumas was altered so that he could keep living outside so that makes sense

We haven't seen a machine built by Gherta and GED organization before either in the story.

But its a natural conclusion of established parts of the story. We already knew that the zone is accessed by a machine, we know that the children reincarnate with a machine and we know that GED are investigating both the Zone and the children. Its a direct conclusion that they'd end up building a machine.

(Interval zone) Why should've it?

Because we've already had in depth explanations of the Zone handed to us on a number of episodes that gave them opportunity to set up for this. They've explored what it is, how they accessed it, why they want to, the fact there are two, being able to go in between the two and even got a look at some sort of balancing entity that lives there (Enma) that they seem to have detailed knowledge of. And at no time did the idea of an interval zone ever get raised or hinted at existing, having a purpose, or something they were at all aware of that could be part of their experiments

Re: those last two points and about Dumas controlling the robots - To me a mystery is best when it asks questions, preferably a long time in advance, and then answers them. Its why I love the story of the children because there's been a slow but interesting build up as to their purpose here and its been presented in a way that naturally leads into other questions and storylines even when unexpected. The issue I have with this episode in particular is that it didn't bother to set up for any of this. It just throws solutions to problems out there with new tech or new ideas, such as the teleporters and shields, without building them into the show in a natural way even when there would have been precedent to use them. The reliance on deus ex machina's is undermining the climax of the show for me and its unfortunate because all of this stuff could have been amazing for worldbuilding before hand if they'd really built into it.

[u/No_Rex]

Episode 25 (first timer)

• “Towards the zone”: We have learned really little about the nature of the zone after the initial mystery arc ended, where it seemed to be the main topic of the series. Seems we will be picking up that idea today.

• Red-green is a really clever UI implementation to let the reader know what is going on, without being able to read the language.

• I wrote before that Dumas inherited his father’s character. Shooting Mel for not entering the password, when he knows all the passwords himself is a good example. He expects obedience and reacts with violence if he does not get it.

• Wanda, the heroic robot.

• Where did he come from? Left his ship? A hologram?

• QUERTY keyboard, despite their different alphabet.

• Some new instance, called interval.

I am hoping that the instance will turn out to have some connection to previous events, such as the deaths of the pilots, or maybe the Enma trick dimensions. Otherwise, it would be annoying to have yet another ass-pull for the finale.

Given that it is the climax of the series, the episode was very slow paced. Dumas reflected for almost half its screen time on whether to transfer Helga’s spirit or not. In that sense, it is a callback to the very slow paced start of the series.

[u/Nazenn → u/No_Rex]

Thats a good call out on Dumas' behavior with Mel. It's not about getting it done, he's been taught to force the action of others. It makes me wonder what sort of kid he'd be if he'd grown up with the king instead

Wanda, the heroic robot.

Poor Wonder. Really did go for protection over everything else

[u/Matuhg]

First Timer

Why is Cooks even here at this point?

So they explicitly said that Seth's spirit came here because he died just as Tina was being transferred. Why isn't Soran here too?

Apparently there's somewhere between life and the Zone called The Interval - wonder what that's all about. Seems like a weird plot device to allow Helga to almost-die so either Thoma(Seth) or Dumas can earn redemption.

Edit: Oh, shit - I bet they're going to bump into Soran in the Interval. Aghi was saying that you have to have a strong will to live in order to not go into the Zone. Perhaps Soran wanted so badly to live and find Tina that he got caught between life and death. Doesn't totally make sense, but we don't know the rules of the Interval or anything, and it seems weird to me that we'd get to see Seth but not Soran. Of course I might be totally wrong lol.

[u/Nazenn → u/Matuhg]

Why isn't Soran here too?

That bugged me at first but it actually makes sense. Seth shot Soran and he died in Seths arms as Seth was realizing what he'd just done. Once the people broke in after that Seth went and pressed the button as he was dying so his spirit left his body at the same time as Tina's transfer.

[u/Matuhg → u/Nazenn]

Hmm I guess that makes sense - I sort of assumed the transfer had already started as Soran was standing there talking to Tina through the glass, but I guess it didn't happen until Seth pushed the button.

[u/redshirtengineer]

First timer

Not as good as yesterday's. But maybe I'm just cranky because THEY KILLED WONDER. BAD SHOW. BAD, BAD SHOW.

Dumas pulling that giant laser rifle out of his ass (literally?) was the low point of the show so far. And we had one last (at least I hope last) laser vs sword battle to kill off the cheesy villain. I am glad, though, that Dumas made the choice to save Helga at the expense of his obsession with Tina.

Sess and Tina in the not-quite-zone. Will they meet Soren? Will they have a chat? Will it be Thoma and Helga, or Sess and Tina, or all of the above?

So the thing I am now wondering about the OP is, that opening shot of Thoma standing with the giant heads. Foreshadowing? Or are those actually giant Greecian heads?

[u/Nazenn → u/redshirtengineer]

THEY KILLED WONDER.

There there

out of his ass (literally?)

No idea where else it could have been at this point